CHAPTER XVI.
MY PERSUASIVE MANNER
I went at once to the house in Arlington Street. The door was opened by Mr. Morley.
“Have you heard anything of Mr. Philip? Is he at home?”
Mr. Morley had opened the door about six inches, peeping through the crevice as if he expected to see some dreadful object on the doorstep. The sight of me seemed to reassure him. He addressed me in a sepulchral whisper.
“Would you mind stepping inside for a moment, sir?”
I went into a front room on the ground floor. Mr. Morley came in after me, and, behind him, Mrs. Morley. I was conscious that the room was filled with old oak furniture. It is, perhaps, because I am not a man of taste that I would not have an apartment in which I proposed to live filled with that funereal wood. Old black oak furniture reminds me of an African swamp. It is dark and sombre—heavy, stiff, ungainly.
Without, the shadows had deepened; in the house it was darker still. The room was still unlighted. The figures of the old man and woman, revealed in the half light, harmonised with the ancient blackness of the furniture. As they stood side by side, as close together as they could get, with, on them both, an air of timidity which the darkness could not hide, I felt that there was a blight upon them, and on the room, and on the house; that it was a place of doom.
“I take it that Mr. Philip has not returned.”
They looked at one another; as if each was unwilling to incur the responsibility of a reply. At last the husband took it on himself.
“No, sir; he’s not returned, but——”